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[[underlined]] Chapter V. [[/underlined]]       86.

was a platform or parapet of [[underlined]] terre pisée [[/underlined]], once no doubt level but now much cut up by cultivation and erosion. This was 42 feet across at the widest of the points where we measured it; in places its inner edge stood 10 feet higher than the terreplein behind it. The latter extended gradually and on the whole evenly downward to the general level of the area inside the walls; there was no abrupt change of contour to indicate where the terreplein had ended and the inner slope of the rampart had begun ([[underlined]] cf. [[/underlined]] fig. [[strikethrough]] 12, [[/strikethrough]] ^[[15,]] profile). That this however did not represent the original condition of the inner face of the old wall appeared likely, for the following reasons.

[[underlined]] Inner Slope of the Rampart. [[/underlined]]
We found that this long interior slope, save where erosion or terracing for cultivation had left more or less vertical sections, was covered with uncompacted earth, apparently washed down from the parapet above, and near the latter was 4 or 5 feet deep.  Beneath this layer was exposed at certain points a stratum containing Han roofing-tiles, bricks, and potsherds and resting in turn on the tamped earth of the original [[underlined]] agger. [[/underlined]] Such a stratification suggested that the top of the parapet had once risen a good deal more than 10 feet higher than the top of the terreplein; and that moreover (to judge from the presence of roofing-tiles) on the latter there had once stood buildings, presumably erected on a level surface.  Thus we might expect that the [[strikethrough]] original [[/strikethrough]] rampart as originally constructed had had an inner face, doubtless much lower and probably less steep than its outer one, and now completely masked by detritus washed down from above.  Its true profile could in consequence only be determined by excavation; and for that we had no time.